


Svenja and the Godstone

by escalinci



Category: The Banner Saga (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:20:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23806756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escalinci/pseuds/escalinci
Summary: After the Darkness spreads across the land, a girl happens to be lucky enough to be visiting a Godstone with her grandfather. However, this does not mean surviving will be easy.
Kudos: 3





	Svenja and the Godstone

I have to write this now so that I don’t forget, though with all that has happened it seems almost folly. I find myself without my siblings and parents, indeed I know not what has become of them, in the dim glow of the Godstone Ingrid. I would have first sought refuge anywhere else than this curiosity but I must accept this small amount of luck. The sky is dark for the first time in months, but not because the day has come to its natural end. We had survived the marching slags and movings of the earth, but after those disasters something has come that bears no comprehension. I hope writing it down settles my head.

Before today I would have counted us as lucky. We have seen no fighting of the likes that left a few silent miserables to survive in Haukstorp, and no caverns have opened up beneath our feet or hills upturned on our heads, though of late father’s knowledge as a hunter has had no bearing on what he could bring home - I remember, as I was still young enough to fit on his shoulders, my astonishment at how the endless, dense and perfectly placed trees were to him a series of quite distinct habitats. But the Lang Loom has become a crash of leaning and broken trees - to my eyes in the dim distance, like a grand fireplace long gone out.

But luck implies a game or rules, and by that reckoning it is hard to see how anybody is winning. In a small town of mostly berry-gatherers one still hears rumors, but until we heard the dredge did not pillage Sigrholm but marched on past it, and then stories from those fleeing towns to the north, we did not pay much heed to the word of the spreading darkness, sounding as it did with generous interpretation like a metaphor or even some religious message. But mother bade us pack some things for travel, a vague precaution. I was attempting to negotiate two of my winter furs into the bottom of a satchel, Chem and Melsie playing outside and quite fairly ignoring the task, when Grandpa raised his voice.

“If we are leaving, I should like to see Ingrid once more before we do. Wisdom is a gift more than ever in difficult times.”

The latter portion alerting us that this was not a long-lost lady-friend but the relic, a half-hour’s walk to the north, my mother, deep herself in weighing up the benefits of packing various utensils hung up over the logs, called out to me.

“Svenja, take your grandfather up the hill. But make sure to be back before...well, don’t take too long, okay?”

If it wasn’t that it would probably be hours sat at the spinning loom. Instead I thought I could spend some time writing at the rock, so threw my Diary and a flask into the still mostly empty satchel and took Grandpa’s hand in his armchair. He wanted to go right away.

If I see mother again, she won’t understand why we’ve been gone so long or, though she believes in the old gods herself, have a whiff of a thought that we might be okay out here by ourselves. Grandpa trusts his son to have found a safe place for his family too, but the greatest of hope that I can summon seems still only to be a wishful dream. Since the rushing black I have not seen anything living pass the light of this hill.

Grandpa can still move with some pace when he wants to, though not at length, and when we arrived at the Godstone, we found a group of pilgrims. Three women, dressed in expensive-looking but plain headgear and painted wooded necklaces, I imagined a little younger than Grandpa, who tried to engage them in friendly and pious conversation, but whether due to class or self-satisfied pomposity they limited themselves to short answers. He even tried to involve me, saying that I had paid a great homage to Ingrid by learning the arts of script, but even if I were in a mood to show off, it didn’t seem to be the kind of knowledge that interested them.

But the Godstone has a definite beauty to it, more so than usually, I thought, without dwelling upon it. The horizon to the North was not our concern. While Grandpa was conversing with himself or perhaps the Goddess, I was making some plain reimaginings of works by a few of my favourite skalds. Bunnies instead of kings, younger siblings instead of blundering Varl and other amusing nonsense. One of the women, speaking in hushed tones amongst themselves until that point, took my attention from the page, speaking aloud.

“Oh my, are those people heading in our direction?”

Around a large cart, over-laden with treasures and missing a horse, were I think five armoured men, clearly bandits, and a little less than a dozen villagers pushing the cart up the steep, knurled path. As a front wheel hit a blockage, five of the villagers made a run for it. Two of the bandits rushed to support the back, while the man furthest behind in his flight caught an arrow to the back. The murderer lowered his bow and I felt his eyes, wide and bloodshot in the midst of his rusted helmet, set on me.

“Girl, all of you, get to helping with this cart! You’ve seen what we do to lazy fools!”

Grandpa stood between me as he advanced, but was easily shoved aside and the pilgrim women were as still and silent as the stone they stood by. The bandit grabbed my upper arm tightly but hesitated to move back to the cart. I have a bruise developing under my fur as I write, but I was not going to go willingly down that hill, even before I noticed the approaching darkness. The view struck me as seeming like a mistake, like a painting half of the night sky and half of green pastures under daylight. I was pushed forward but the bandit only aimed his bow at the exhausted faces behind the cart, and I did not move.

The dark, solid fog was now clearly advancing on the plains below. A look back from one of the bandits to below was enough to confirm that was what they were running from. Grandpa told me to go, and although the speed of the advancing blackness would surely have meant leaving him behind, I am ashamed to admit that was what I was already thinking. The men next to me was focused on holding his aim, though the poor villagers had been given a doomed task, and as I helped Grandpa to his feet with one eye on the west side downhill, I saw his and my own shadow, long like shadows from a hearth, not from a sun stopped at midday point.

Though not bright and fiery as it is now, as I turned around the godstone was distinctly glowing. It felt wrong to leave. We only stepped back a ways off the aim of the rusty-headed bandit. What happened next, I wish I had never seen, but I suppose it is enough of a blessing to have survived.

Though the remaining villagers and thieves had passed the steepest part of the climb, time was against them. The bandits and then a few villagers scrambled forward, gripping the sides and front of the cart, before all but one in armour abandoned the cart, and the villagers took this as their leave not a moment after. An arrow sank into the chest of a woman with a kind, round face and she did not die. Her last moments were spent clawing at the grass to get closer to us, but I cannot recall how long she held out. I can make out her arm quite clearly, but I am thankful the rest of the unfortunate woman’s remains are a dark haze.

The bandit left pushing the cart was larger and older that the rest, and as he made some curse I could see his body straining, and beside him a gaunt woman and a boy younger then myself, his deadened eyes set straight forward. The darkness rushed over the cart and filled the space over our heads, and the cart stopped. It seemed at first as if they were taking a deep breath, but it quickly seemed more like gasping for air. The remaining bandit grasped harder and leaned on the cart, letting out a deep yell as the other two fell away. His pupils seemed to fade and the skin on his forearms and neck to bubble. The boy had gotten up and was flailing around, his limbs were horribly twisting and contorting and his skin changing colour. The woman’s hunger-ridden face had become something hollow, a deep shade of purple and a shrieking tone as she marched towards us, followed by the boy and the bandit, stumbling a little on the rocks with their single gaze set on us.

All who had made it to the light took a step back, but as the creature that had been a woman could be seen a little more clearly in the light, she recoiled as one might stepping on hot coals. The same happened with the other two monstrous beings, and they stayed for a few tense seconds, as if testing their tolerance, their eyes still fixed on us and ours on them. Finally they appeared to give up and shambled away.

A sense of relief could be seen on everyone’s faces, and the three younger bandits who had escaped the cart were in a mood of boorish joviality until the man with a rusty hemet interrupted.

“You lazy fools! You’ve damned us all to starvation.” Rusty barked, and I could see they wished to yelp or whine something back, but they withheld their thoughts. They seem...rather lost without anything to plunder or fight, but I am also more than aware that these men are not the type that need a reason to resort to violence. Whenever they talk about something, whether is be how much they would like a beer or how the etching of Ingrid ‘barely looks like a proper woman’, that thing is undoubtedly a ‘fa’en’ something.

The three remaining villager men don’t seem to be related, or even particularly familiar to one another. Nevertheless they had sat together, near to Grandpa and I, making the best of the cold grass and their bare clothing. A youngish man with a course accent told me the bandits had taken them while trying toride out of Boersgard. One of the city-guard had speared their horse, and after abandoning it they had been shifting the heaving cart for a full day without rest or food. They looked utterly spent, and he didn’t ask how we had gotten here. Though thoughts are racking my head of Father, Mother, Melsie and even you, Chem, I did not think speaking of such things would bring either of us any comfort.

They also look at me a little strangely as I’ve been writing, but I am used to that. I was made more uneasy by the occasional glances from two of the bandits, until I saw that the pilgrim women were reciprocally watching them. The three of them stood up and wandered over in their big cloaks and sat between me and them. I suppose their stuffy bearing has its uses.

Grandpa has been staring out into the blackness, and I don’t too well know how to talk to him at the best of times. But I’ve put the other fur over him and I’m going to tell him I’m going to try to get some sleep. I wager my dreams can’t unsettle me any more than I already have been by the events of today.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Grandpa woke me up, I’m not sure how much time had passed, or if he’d got any sleep himself. The sky was still dark and he bade me to look in the distance. I saw a flicking red light and sat up straight. So far as I saw the others were all asleep. I asked Grandpa if we should wake the others but he just kept staring out. I slipped over to the villagers, who with the cold were sleeping lightly anyway.

The light was definitely moving, so we couldn’t say it was a fire. The men weren’t sure if it was a hopeful sign of life, or those monsters coming back. I wasn’t optimistic, how could anybody could survive whatever this was? As for the bandits, none of us felt like waking somebody who was armed.

As the light came closer, it became more clearly a figure. One of the pilgrim women stirred, made a sign to the gods and looked at us to see what the fuss was about, and then to what our attention was fixed upon. Tremendously dark, but nonetheless there, on the edge of our small oasis was a dredge, holding a sling aloft with lit red smoke coming drifting upwards. It stood still as it noticed us as much as we were on the balls of our feet. It scanned quickly to the sleeping bandits on its left, but its light began to flicker and dim more quickly, and it made an odd warbling noise and seemed to hurry in.

This awoke the bandits, who drowsily half-unsheathed their weapons. I’ve been lucky enough never to have seen a dredge before, it was a little smaller than I was expecting. The eyes, however, gave nothing away. It stood still as the bandits slowly approached, halting ten feet or so away. The dredge began to lower its sling when one of the bandits rushed, sword outstretched.

I was not expecting, either, for something that looked like stone to be sonimble - the dredge’s red sash flicked upwards as it leant away from the first thrust, then it got onto the left-hand side of the advancing three, waited for the nearest to swing, grabbing the outstreched arm and bundling the bandit into the waiting two. Once they had gotten back up, the moon-eyed fighter put myself between the bandits and it. Luckily they tried to go around instead of through me. It then hid behind the villagers and circled around the pious ladies a few times, finding them to be better cover and giving me time to bring Grandpa over to the stone out of harm’s way. Eventually finding nothing and no-one to hide behind, the dredge dashed to the other side of the stone. I heard one of the ladies let out a shivering sigh and I peeked around the corner to see something quite strange occur.

The bandits were quickly closing down on the dredge, which leaned right, seeming to make the decision to try to dash back around them, or it might have been reaching for its sling. One of the running bandits shifted his weight in kind, and placed an outstretched foot right into the path of the bandit leader. He tumbled into a roll down the slope. I heard a warble from the dredge, which stretched out an arm and came tumbling down with the momentum of the bandit’s leg. A heap on the floor but still just in the light, the other three held the ominous saviour at the point of their swords. The rusty helmet had come off and tumbled into the black, its owner gathering his breath, his shoulders heaving and I thought, a little steam rising from his matted dark hair.

One of the other bandits began to say something, but Matty burst around and slammed the hilt of his sword into the foot that had tripped him. Much shouting ensued and the dredge scrambled away a little on all fours. I heard one of the women ask ‘Is it dead?’ and shook my head, deciding not to add that one of the thieves might soon be. Eventually the recriminations died down and they turned to the question of what to do with ‘the slag’.

Despite the death I had seen them deal out to fellow humans with very little meaning, they discussed this among themselves. The fact that it had apparently saved the life of the man who now held the most sway in their reduced numbers, that they could easily take it if they wanted to, why wouldn’t it kill them in their sleep - ‘saving meat for later’. They laughed at the youngest for the idea that dredge eat people, but he countered that we don’t know what they eat. Having said that, even the most educated folk know next to nothing about dredge, other than that their great-grandfathers were in a war with them. The shaggy-haired leader finally crouched down to the dredge, extended a hand and said ‘I don’t kill people unless I have to’.

What a load of crock, I thought, but it is probably harder to kill something if you have to think about it. Before the dredge made any response, the same woman I’d heard earlier strode out from behind me.

“You can’t seriously let that monstrous thing live?”

Back with a flash, Matty answered “Look who you’re calling monstrous.”

She said she was _sure_ she didn’t know what he meant by that, then surprisingly he offered her his sword.

“If you want it dead so much, can’t you kill it yourself?”

She told him not to be so ridiculous and huffed back over to the other side. I had moved back to be a little less visible, but even so her cloak whipped against me as she went past.

As if remembering that they were bandits, the two younger bandits then went through the dredge’s things. The dredge warbled...angrily but they had stopped treating it as a threat.

“Just rocks” The youngest said, inspecting a rough pebble. “Why would you carry around a bunch of rocks?”

“Maybe it’s a nice side dish when it’s eating lovely babies for dinner!” said the other.

I had to pipe up, they was the obvious question - how had it gotten through the poisonous darkness? It was carrying a flaming rock, and that must be what protected it, and what all those things were. I was almost right.

“She speaks!” the eldest said. I had no cause to speak before then. He handed the man, still with the stone in his hand, a flint. The dredge suddenly stood up but was simply shoved back down. The young man gripped the stone in his glove and struck it slight. It glowed a brilliant blue, and he held it aloft and marvelled. The dredge extended its hands for a moment before making a sort of retreat. Something was clearly wrong, and the elder bandit noted it too. He muttered something to the youngster, backing away. It could have been his name, or a nickname, but I wasn’t sure. He had enough time to look back at his partner in crime with wide, unknowing eyes before the rock exploded in his face.

I didn’t look any longer than I needed to know he was dead. A lot of his arm seemed to be missing. I felt a pang of guilt. The others were uninjured, the elder looking in particular more annoyed than mournful, but the other remaining bandit’s cloak had caught fire and he was flailing around with appropriate worry.

Others began to come around the side of the stone, and the dark-haired bandit let out an infuriated yell. He grabbed under the armpit of the dredge and strode with it to the other side of the stone as his partner’s rolling in the grass put out his cloak. He pointed at the cart and explained that there was food amongst other things out there and they needed to get at it. I am sure it helped that a dredge probably has no way to differentiate an esteemed human merchant and a lowly scoundrel. In any case, his wild gesticulations got the point across, if nodding means the same to dredge as humans.

The bandit with his underling went to the rest of the group and, making an attempt at being unpresumptuous, told us all we needed to push the cart to under the stone. One of the villager men with red locks asked mockingly if he’d kill us if not. The vile man breezily answer “No, I’ll push you out there,” pointing, as if any clarification was needed.

So there were five men ready to push, and as the villagers shuffled behind the bandits in resignation ,their captor turned back. The dredge was still slumped a little, still in place where it had been frog-marched. He beckoned it but it did not come, and seemed to be looking away from his gaze.

What I did next may have been a little foolish, seeing as the bandits hadn’t involved me (or grandpa and the other women for that matter). I walked over to the dredge (if anybody finds this notebook in years to come this where they may start to doubt that I am a reliable witness, but the character of this beast really did not seem to match the stories we had been told) and crouched down a little to its level. None of us had any idea what it had seen on its way to us, but I wagered much worse than any of us had been party to. I gently took the sling off from over its shoulder and picked up a stone out of its satchel. They all looked the same to me, so I was glad when a black hand entered my vision and plucked it pack out of my hand.

Still impassive, the dredge took out a series of stones and placed them on the ground in front of me. For a moment it looked into my eyes and I thought, what does it see when it looks at me? Maybe it’s so that I look as white and featureless to it as it seems black and angular. Do the folk it may call its closest fawn over the bridges of its ‘cheekbones’ as much as my mother dotes on my interminable freckling, and tries to convince me that it’s my prize asset? I pocketed a few and spoke to that vile man, who was looking at me with impatient bemusement.

He agreed that if I lit the stones and went with them they would share what they had stole, although he said it would be “what they felt like” and “if you get scorched it’s not like we’ll miss you pushing”, an excuse I’m sure, to hide that he was afraid. His underling fetched the flint (how do dredge light these things? Off their own bodies perhaps?) and as he gave it to me, I heard Grandpa murmur “cowards”, but it was not remarked upon. I laid a stone in the sling, stepped a little towards the edge and was relieved to see it light up with a bright, fizzing red. The heat, though, made me adjust my grip.

I was worried about when it would begin to fizzle out, that being far too complicated to talk over with the dredge, but it turned out to be just fine. It was only when we started moving out to the cart that I realised the strangeness of being surrounded by five men who were strangers to me. I’m not sure if it was so necessary to be so closely packed in, and until I pointed out it would be better it nobody made me drop the light, there was some jostling.

We passed to the back of the cart and I could see amongst the useless finery there were crates of food. I was really terribly hungry and when the men started at pushing the cart, it was clear they were affected too. Though it was slow going it was also not far to go and the main risk was a rollback sending the cart back further. Being surrounded on the way I had not seen her, but the unlucky woman killed for fleeing for her life was of course, still there. We passed her outstretched arms back into safety and while the others were rolling their shoulders or otherwise resting, the bandit with the scorched cloak bade me come with him. I’m not sure why he didn’t make, or try to make, one of the men do it but I followed him out to the corpse of that woman, he grabbed her by the arms and tossed her somewhat roughly down the mountain. I didn’t want to see her face, so I looked at his. He was frowning a little but I couldn’t read a great deal into his expression. Then we went around and did the same for his younger friend. I asked if he knew him well. He simply replied “no”.

The shaggy-haired bandit was demanding now that everybody move to the other side of the stone “or we might rethink being kind enough to give you some of what’s ours”. But what is there, I am sure, would spoil before two people could eat it. I fear this will be cause for a thousand small demands in the coming days.

In the end after splitting some bundles of wood for fire, we went to the other side of the Godstone, there is less runework from this side but Ingrid is still looking down on us - she apparently had one eye in the back of her head, or perhaps that is a way to figuratively represent her all-knowing nature. The bandits decided to let one of the villager men, the youngest who I spoke to yesterday, come and get food. Thankfully it seems the bandits have no idea what normal folk who don’t live off the bounty of others normally have to subsist on, and he made several trips with what I was told was pork, vegetables, potatoes, a cask of ale and even butter, a pan and some basic utensils. We assembled some stones to set the pan over the firewood. The women were afraid at first that these might have formed part of the main stone, but there were no runes to see, and being hungry too, they soon set to discussing what they could make. A stew with the beer? No, said the young villager, we couldn’t afford to boil drink. Thirst gets you before hunger (and I will have to get used to drinking that grog since my own flask is nearly empty of water). What a shame we don’t have any herbs, said another. “Just try not to burn it,” said the red-headed man, “and do it before we starve”. I was inclined to agree. Whether it was because of my hunger or an undiscovered craving for pig-flesh, it was undoubtedly the richest meal I have ever had.

The dredge joined our side of the stone after some delay, I am not sure when. It is sat away from us, nearest to where the man died, and we discussed a little, as the pot dwindled from us all sticking our hands in, if we should offer it some food.The women objected but Grandpa, choosing his moment to speak up, pointed out that we have it to thank for the food ‘even if it is a stinking slag’. I thought it might fall to me but the red-haired man picked up the pot and went on over. He was perhaps a little too friendly, though I do not think he’d had _too_ much ale. He did the familiar “no, but I insist” routine one does when a neighbour won’t accept a bushel of carrots as thanks for their help re-thatching your roof, but came back without luck. I asked if he was sure it didn’t want any, but of course, I was grateful for seconds.

I took the chance to peek around the corner to see the bandits, sat on the back of the cart had just gotten a fire going. They were drinking something from a large bottle, probably wine, and frying big slabs of meat. The shaggy haired one looked like a man satisfied when a plan goes off without a hitch, and his companion (who by way of comparison, doesn’t have much hair to speak or, not that it is neat, nor is he balding) seems a little listless. Perhaps that’s just the way his face looks. I am going to sleep now, anyway, and I am glad that they are _over there_.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

I awoke to see the blonde man spreading the ash from the fire to soak up the blood on the ground. I am not sure how familiar I should be with these people. We are becoming so to some extent by necessity, but it’s a different matter when there’s only one of them awake and nothing to remark upon. He flashed a crooked smile, then we looked off in opposite directions.

When the others awoke we had some bread and it started to become real, that we were a group, not some random strangers passing in the night, and that our situation, if it were to change at all, wouldn’t likely any time soon. We got around to learning names and spent the majority of the day making some necessary improvements to what might now be reasonably called a camp - tonight we will be sleeping on straw from the cart, the sides of which have been hacked off to block off the latrine that we will have to dig and cover daily. I find myself longing for the times Father would drag me on hunts - I hated it, but then at least in the morning we would leave the hole behind. I’ve been whittling stakes and the men driving them into the ground, lacking hammers simply using other bits of wood. The dredge can use its fists for such things, and moved things along more quickly once it realised what we were doing. Its fear seems to have been replaced with fascination. I should probably be glad for you, but I’m not entirely certain, that you won’t get to learn about our toilet habits, stone creature.

The women have become a little less standoffish too, I think in recognition of the small amount of luck they have been handed, and in the discussions about what we should do, their contributions have been more like suggestions than demands. It also turns out their hair clips can be fairly useful for removing splinters.

The bandits seemed to be doing nothing in comparison, but happy to use our handiwork, another bonus for ‘their allowances’. I don’t like having someone so uncouth with a yoke on all our necks, but where would we be with no food? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

However, I can’t help but be annoyed by other things. The supplies at our disposal are those for a banquet, not survival. Though they only let Oláin (the young man with blonde hair) take anything from the cart, this has become clear: there are no clothes or anything to wash with among the plunder, and more meat than grains and vegetables. I am sure even Chem would do better with an hour at market and a sack of gold.

That Oláin seems to not be one to complain is an asset, as he unreasonably received ours today, and I overheard our Lord with a Sword provoking him with some rather uncreative insults. Ale I am sure though would ruin the taste of anything. The flavour is weak and bitter, the froth unnatural, the bubbles gassy. Grandpa quite seriously intoned he will be watching to see I do not drink too much, but he does not have to. However I can see how its dulling affect could be attractive in our current state.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

The past few days have been uneventful, but the meat is starting to spoil, at least what the bandits have been giving us. I have eaten worse but at request of the women, everything has been overcooked, lending an extra stodginess to our fayre. Wistfulness, not just itchiness, has crept over the camp, and the villagers spent a long time discussing girls back home. Other then there being anybody my age here, I wish that I could see the stars in this darkness, Melsie loves the stars and when I cannot sleep, I try to picture where they were. It is difficult to remember.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Freja, one of the women asked me today if I knew any of the old skalds. I said I did and she unexpectedly brought me to the other women for a sort of performance. Trying to think of something that would please them I recited, I am not sure with error or not, The Tale of Hridvaldyr and the Lazy Hunter (a man lays traps for animals for he does not want to go out and hunt, which works well until his son forgets where the traps are laid). They enjoyed it, and confided in me that they see this darkness as the Loom Mother’s punishment for forgetting the Old Gods, and the bandits and dredge are a test for the ‘pure’ trapped here to overcome. There was real fervour in their eyes. It must be nice to have some purpose in this day-to-day existence.

We have eaten spoiled sausages today, which must mean the meat is nearly gone, despite all the salting and curing.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Demands were made today from the other two villager men for inventory of the cart, not to take anything, but just to know what was there ‘so we know nothing’s being hidden’. But marching over there predictably only got one of them a bloody nose. They are berating poor Oláin that it could have gone better if only he joined them. The dredge sat turned away from us during the shouting too, as if passing judgement on our whole race.

Although most of the firewood has been used up, ineffective slabs are now drilled into the ground from the edges of the stone to where the light falls off. Oláin can just about sidle through. We cooked and shared an already brown, stinking hunk of beef. I argued that Grandpa should have a healthier-looking slice as I wasn’t sure how he would handle any illness. That was agreed and the women thought that might apply to them too, they were told by the men that they could just as well go without. One of them indeed decided to do just that, the other two decided special treatment wasn’t necessary for them after all. It had an odd aftertaste but we were all hungry. I felt some trouble in my stomach, but it passed.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Today I looked at the mouldy offering and decided it was better to go hungry than ill. The red-haired man, Gripi, shouted “You’ve got good food you’re not sharing, why else would you hide it?” We heard a laugh but no answer. Gripi marched over and as he was squeezing through he received an arrow to the shoulder. Much cursing ensued, and there was a lot of blood while we removed the arrow and staunched the wound - with his vest, nothing else being to hand. The bandits may have spirits to clean the wound with too, but they weren’t answering. The elder old certainly sounded drunk though, which makes me wonder if the wound was intended to be fatal. He has gone to sleep now but his friend sits watch. He saw me looking and still has that slightly blank expression. I think only one of us can sleep through Gripi’s whimpering.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Meat with green patches is starting to look ever more appealing. Or the grass? Cows eat grass. Gripi joked that if he dies we all have his blessing to eat him. “I may stink but I’m fresh” he said. It’s not the sort of humor I’d have appreciated just a few weeks ago.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Nor would I have greeted news like this. There is only one bandit left here. I would guess that one of the men crept through and used another of the dredges stones. I saw it afterwards, counting all of the stones carefully up like the day we went to drag in that fa’en cart, then it bundled them all up again and threw them into the darkness. I woke up to the sound of the explosion and saw the dead man’s former underling staring in shock. Nobody admitted to it and nobody asked who it was, but one of the men helped him throw the once-shaggy haired bandit leader out of the light and down the hill.

He didn’t stop us from seeing what was in the carts and it was very good news - a few potatoes that were only sprouting a little, dried meats, nuts and underneath everything an untouched bag of grain. Oh, and jewels, carpets, necklaces and other finery.

When I asked about the grain, he said it must have been in the cart when they stole it. I didn’t inquire further but he began to tell us more. Apparently they came across a high-born house in Boersgard where the Lord of the House hadn’t fled to the capital (this is very silly, but this was a source of great disappointment to me, as I always thought or dreamed that a girl who could read and write would have a leg up in seeking employment in one of those houses).

The Lord was speaking to someone he thought was a servant, but he wasn’t talking like a one, being very forceful and telling the Lord he was going to die, and something about reports of a light and shapes being visible at Dundur’s mountaintop being unreliable, that they couldn’t rely on fleeing to Ingrid at the last moment. He told us he ran his blade through the man as he opened a doorway to the awaiting bandit, then ‘some sort of spark’ come from a stick he’d been carrying, so he ‘finished him off’.

The Lord then told them they were all going to die unless they followed his instructions, to no avail. “We asked him where he kept his gold, then we stuck him like a pig.” But what they heard, as well as the rumorsin town crept on their mind “so he we are” he said.

He stood up and turned away from us. The men were grabbing armfuls of treats from the remainder of the cart. Somebody pushed a pastry into my hands. I have since wolfed it down, but at that moment I was stood watching the lonely bandit. He slowly took a few steps away from us until the light was falling off his rising shoulders. He strode forward and in that moment, the darkness lifted.

The dredge left straight away, and as the bandit turned his head to the crunching footsteps I saw he had closed his eyes. They seemed the only two who were not overjoyed, but I am since rethinking that. We have been saved, but the world has not. I look over the twisted horizon, I hear the women proclaim that the bandit has been ‘cleansed of his sins’, I hear the men clattering things together, to return to their village, I see Grandpa staring off towards ours.

It’s not only the case that we can see the sun again, it is moving. I can’t worry about what is left out there, I have to get home before sunset.


End file.
